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This article is being a bit disingenuous and the title is simply misleading. The uneducated reader might come away with the mistaken impression that science fun

This article is being a bit disingenuous and the title is simply misleading. The uneducated reader might come away with the mistaken impression that science funding has been reduced. This incorrect idea is further reinforced with the graph of "Outlays as share of total federal budget". Some other graphs from the same source: http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/DefNon_0.jpg http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/DefNon_0.jpg http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/FunctionNON_0.jpg http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/FunctionNON_0.jpg A better title: "The research budget is growing, but the federal government is growing faster."

christianbryant 12y ago
You're not wrong about the slight bloat in the marketing here, but I wouldn't say the article is disingenuous. In fact, I think the authors clearly wanted to pull in readers, and once in, offer heart-felt examinations of multiple disciplines and the state they are in currently, good and bad. Remember, this is a report of the _innovation_ deficit, not funding. Through examination of the political and social ecosystems driving and holding back each discipline, and how each one fits within the priorities of our government, we see where innovation is lacking and potentially why.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
The federal budget is pretty much a function of inflation + population and economic growth. Since 1960, the budget has hovered between 30 and 40% of GDP. The federal government isn't really growing so much as the country and world are, and we should expect basic research to keep up with that growth.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Real federal expenditures per capita have grown, so it's not merely population growth. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&recession_bars=on&log_scales=&bgcolor=%23e1e9f0&graph_bgcolor=%23ffffff&fo=verdana&ts=12&tts=12&txtcolor=%23444444&show_legend=yes&show_axis_titles=yes&drp=0&cosd=1947-01-01&coed=2014-10-01&width=670&height=445&stacking=&range=&mode=fred&id=GCEC96_POP&transformation=lin&nd=&ost=-99999&oet=99999&lsv=&lev=&scale=left&line_color=%234572a7&line_style=solid&lw=2&mark_type=none&mw=1&mma=0&fml=a&fgst=lin&fgsnd=2007-12-01&fq=Quarterly&fam=avg&vintage_date=&revision_date= https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line... This means that the government is doing more stuff per person. There is no reason to expect basic research funding or other types of funding to track either GDP growth or population growth. Population may double, but that doesn't mean there are twice as many good hypothesis to test. Once you've achieved economies of scale, programs like basic research should grow sublinearly.
  - nmrm 12y ago
    I think the point of the bulk of the document was to demonstrate that lots of good hypotheses aren't being tested (in the US).
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Strange, the chart doesn't go before 1950, we would definitely see a huge spike in the 40s. Government grows with GDP because people want more services, less crime, less poverty, and stuff like that; there is a reason libertarians can't get elected. One thing people like is going to space, having scientists trained in public/private universities. Even if they go into private industry, they are trained with lots of federal dollars. Cut off all that, and China will just pass us in a decade or two. And really, why not spend additional GDP on public R&D? The benefits have been net positive over the long term, spurring new industries and economic growth. This is a no brainer.
    - pandaman 12y ago
      >And really, why not spend additional GDP on public R&D? The benefits have been net positive over the long term, spurring new industries and economic growth. This is a no brainer. Is there any proof for such a claim? Please, before attacking me, realize that there are many states between "more money for R&D" and "no money for R&D". I am merely asking if there is any evidence that adding more money will produce the benefits you asserted, not proposing to cut funding completely.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        Obviously there is a point where the economy can't absorb it or there is no one to do it, which is why I think keeping it steady with GDP is reasonable. 1% for public non millitary R&D is sustainable, 10% os probably not unless there is a big problem to be solved (e.g. An asteroid tumbling toward earth or something). That also allows us to keep training a healthy number of scientists to do something useful with the extra GDP (as opposed to training more day traders/speculators, capital has to go somewhere, might as well be somewhere useful).
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
That fails to convey the "threat" that the authors are trying to highlight. The goal here was to say: "The world is moving too fast for our pace of basic and applied sciences."
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
There is another factor to consider. Future scientific gains may be more expensive to obtain than they were in the past. For example pushing the frontiers of space exploration is going to require much more funding. We have a few rovers on Mars now, but to get rovers on Titan will not be as cheap as getting them to Mars.
- christianbryant 12y ago
  This is very true. But, we have set up a market in the form of software that can potentially generate billions of dollars with human energy being the primary expenditure, ideally using existing hardware and energy infrastructures to build off of. If we can push software further, generate the revenue needed for research and projects like deep space exploration from this, we can still get there. It's not exactly "money from nothing" but it's as close as we can get, and we've already built the infrastructure to achieve it globally...
- jimmcslim 12y ago
  Or possibly, we have reached the limits of what can be achieved in certain disciplines? Take batteries for example; a great many other technologies would be greatly enhanced by a quantum leap in battery energy storage (e.g. mobiles and wearables, robots, transportation) but we may have reached a practical limit in what can be achieved with the chemistry of the universe.
  - rjaco31 12y ago
    This is highly unlikely, there are numerous proofs of natural materials with way higher energetic density.

christianbryant 12y ago

You're not wrong about the slight bloat in the marketing here, but I wouldn't say the article is disingenuous. In fact, I think the authors clearly wanted to pull in readers, and once in, offer heart-felt examinations of multiple disciplines and the state they are in currently, good and bad. Remember, this is a report of the _innovation_ deficit, not funding. Through examination of the political and social ecosystems driving and holding back each discipline, and how each one fits within the priorities of our government, we see where innovation is lacking and potentially why.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

The federal budget is pretty much a function of inflation + population and economic growth. Since 1960, the budget has hovered between 30 and 40% of GDP. The federal government isn't really growing so much as the country and world are, and we should expect basic research to keep up with that growth.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Real federal expenditures per capita have grown, so it's not merely population growth. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&recession_bars=on&log_scales=&bgcolor=%23e1e9f0&graph_bgcolor=%23ffffff&fo=verdana&ts=12&tts=12&txtcolor=%23444444&show_legend=yes&show_axis_titles=yes&drp=0&cosd=1947-01-01&coed=2014-10-01&width=670&height=445&stacking=&range=&mode=fred&id=GCEC96_POP&transformation=lin&nd=&ost=-99999&oet=99999&lsv=&lev=&scale=left&line_color=%234572a7&line_style=solid&lw=2&mark_type=none&mw=1&mma=0&fml=a&fgst=lin&fgsnd=2007-12-01&fq=Quarterly&fam=avg&vintage_date=&revision_date= https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line... This means that the government is doing more stuff per person. There is no reason to expect basic research funding or other types of funding to track either GDP growth or population growth. Population may double, but that doesn't mean there are twice as many good hypothesis to test. Once you've achieved economies of scale, programs like basic research should grow sublinearly.
- nmrm 12y ago
  I think the point of the bulk of the document was to demonstrate that lots of good hypotheses aren't being tested (in the US).
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Strange, the chart doesn't go before 1950, we would definitely see a huge spike in the 40s. Government grows with GDP because people want more services, less crime, less poverty, and stuff like that; there is a reason libertarians can't get elected. One thing people like is going to space, having scientists trained in public/private universities. Even if they go into private industry, they are trained with lots of federal dollars. Cut off all that, and China will just pass us in a decade or two. And really, why not spend additional GDP on public R&D? The benefits have been net positive over the long term, spurring new industries and economic growth. This is a no brainer.
  - pandaman 12y ago
    >And really, why not spend additional GDP on public R&D? The benefits have been net positive over the long term, spurring new industries and economic growth. This is a no brainer. Is there any proof for such a claim? Please, before attacking me, realize that there are many states between "more money for R&D" and "no money for R&D". I am merely asking if there is any evidence that adding more money will produce the benefits you asserted, not proposing to cut funding completely.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      Obviously there is a point where the economy can't absorb it or there is no one to do it, which is why I think keeping it steady with GDP is reasonable. 1% for public non millitary R&D is sustainable, 10% os probably not unless there is a big problem to be solved (e.g. An asteroid tumbling toward earth or something). That also allows us to keep training a healthy number of scientists to do something useful with the extra GDP (as opposed to training more day traders/speculators, capital has to go somewhere, might as well be somewhere useful).

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

That fails to convey the "threat" that the authors are trying to highlight. The goal here was to say: "The world is moving too fast for our pace of basic and applied sciences."

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

There is another factor to consider. Future scientific gains may be more expensive to obtain than they were in the past. For example pushing the frontiers of space exploration is going to require much more funding. We have a few rovers on Mars now, but to get rovers on Titan will not be as cheap as getting them to Mars.

christianbryant 12y ago
This is very true. But, we have set up a market in the form of software that can potentially generate billions of dollars with human energy being the primary expenditure, ideally using existing hardware and energy infrastructures to build off of. If we can push software further, generate the revenue needed for research and projects like deep space exploration from this, we can still get there. It's not exactly "money from nothing" but it's as close as we can get, and we've already built the infrastructure to achieve it globally...
jimmcslim 12y ago
Or possibly, we have reached the limits of what can be achieved in certain disciplines? Take batteries for example; a great many other technologies would be greatly enhanced by a quantum leap in battery energy storage (e.g. mobiles and wearables, robots, transportation) but we may have reached a practical limit in what can be achieved with the chemistry of the universe.
- rjaco31 12y ago
  This is highly unlikely, there are numerous proofs of natural materials with way higher energetic density.